The National Antisemitic Crime Audit, published on 16th July 2017, provides a comprehensive analysis of antisemitic crime trends in 2016.
You can read the foreword here or download the full report for detailed insights into the prevalence and handling of antisemitic incidents across the UK.
Foreword
This year’s report makes for shocking reading. Ever since crime targeting British Jews began to surge in 2014, each successive year has set a new record for antisemitic crime, and each year fewer crimes have been charged. 2016 was the worst year on record for antisemitic crime, yet instead of protecting British Jews, the authorities prosecuted merely twenty cases of antisemitic hate crime, including merely two violent crimes.
In 2016, antisemitic crime grew by 14.9% compared to 2015 (44.5% compared to 2014), but only half of police forces charged any of the antisemitic crimes reported to them. The failure to enforce is especially alarming due the ferocity of antisemitic crime: 1 in 10 crimes involved violence. The failure of police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service to protect British Jews is a betrayal.
The authorities’ inaction is laid bare by the fact that Campaign Against Antisemitism has had to bring its first private prosecution of an antisemite, and gone to court to successfully overturn an indefensible decision not to prosecute a neo-Nazi.
Frontline police officers and prosecutors routinely fail to recognise common forms of antisemitism, or fail to take it seriously. Officers and prosecutors are being given insufficient training and oversight.
While we were delighted to see many of the recommendations we presented last year adopted in the government’s 2016 Hate Crime Action Plan, those responsible for implementing them have failed to do so. The solutions are simple, but whilst the right promises are being made, little has been implemented. The result is that British Jews continue to endure intolerable levels of hate crime.
This year we make exactly the same recommendations as we did last year: produce specific training and guidance on antisemitic hate crime for officers and prosecutors, developed in close consultation with us, in addition to the generic hate crime training that leaves officers and prosecutors ill-equipped to deal with the intricacies of antisemitism; instruct Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to review all police forces; appoint a senior officer in each force with responsibility for overseeing the response to antisemitic hate crime; and require the Crown Prosecution Service to record and regularly publish details of cases involving antisemitism and their outcomes.
Britain has the political will to fight antisemitism and strong laws with which to do it, but those responsible for tackling the rapidly growing racist targeting of British Jews are failing to enforce the law. There is a very real danger of Jewish citizens emigrating, as has happened elsewhere in Europe unless there is radical change.
